


Any Tuesday Afternoon

by andifiquitnow



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-02 11:20:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8665564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andifiquitnow/pseuds/andifiquitnow
Summary: Bernie and Serena have a quiet moment at the hospital. Set before any of the kissing, but not by much.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for lunacatriona's fanfic contest on Tumblr. Prompt: “Life is tough, my darling, but so are you.” - Stephanie Bennett Henry. I'm considering expanding this into more chapters but I'm not sure yet.

Bernie’s hands grip the cold railing, an unlit cigarette clenched between two fingers and the hospital looming up behind her as the afternoon turns into night.

As an army medic, death is everywhere, fast and bloody, over before it’s begun. She saved people, many people, but she also lost people. Mostly people she didn’t know. She knew her squad, but saw so many other soldiers live and die before she could even get their serial number. That kind of death became normal.

Death at Holby City is different. It often follows long conversations and hard decisions and crying relatives. Patients come in, Bernie gets to know them, she performs surgery, and then sometimes they still die, right there after having become people to her.

Bernie leans forward and presses her forehead against the railing. She will not cry. She will not cry.

She lets go of the railing abruptly, stands tall and brings the cigarette to her lips. She flicks her lighter once, twice, three times, but can’t still her hands long enough for the cigarette to catch.

“Here,” says a voice behind her.

Serena steps forward and takes the lighter from Bernie’s hands. Bernie hadn’t even heard footsteps. She flicks it calmly into life and holds it up, a weirdly intimate act Bernie doesn’t normally let other people do because of how uncomfortable it makes her feel. She can light her own goddamn cigarette, okay.

She inhales deeply without making eye contact and goes back to leaning over the railing. After a moment’s hesitation, Serena snaps the lighter closed and slides it into the pocket of Bernie’s grey sweatshirt, another familiar gesture Bernie lets her get away.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Serena says casually. Although she didn’t have to look very hard. She’s beginning to think she has a spidey sense for Bernie’s location and what mood she’ll find her in when she gets there, made easier today by having heard in passing what had happened.

Bernie clears her throat. “How was the, um, garden meeting?” An effort at normal conversation, and because she actually does care about what Serena was doing all day, for reasons she tries not to understand.

Serena snorts. “Bloody waste of time. I don’t know why I had to be there, of all people, but they needed a representative from the ward. They want to reallocate some of the parking and install a garden. I’m all for gardens, but it dragged on and on.”

Bernie smiles at her through her bangs for a second, but it doesn’t last long.

Serena rests a hand between Bernie’s shoulder blades and rubs up and down a couple of times as Bernie smokes, trying to ease the rigidity from her frame.

“Is it just today,” she asks quietly, “or is there something else wrong?”

“It’s just today,” Bernie says honestly. “Sometimes it feels like we just watch people die all day long.”

“I know.” Because it feels natural, Serena steps in closer and slides her arm around Bernie’s waist, pulling her into a tight one-armed hug, resting her chin on her shoulder. “I know it feels that way, but we don’t. Think of how many people lived today because of you.”

“Not enough,” Bernie says.

“I know that too,” Serena says. “I know it’s tough, darling, but so are you.” She feels Bernie take a deep unsteady breath and suddenly all of Serena’s senses are hyper-aware.

The moment teeters on the edge of being too real, a shimmering awareness just in front of them that neither of them can reach for, before Serena pulls away and pats her on the arm in a professional doctor-y way. “Come on,” she says, “come out and get a drink with me.”

Bernie doesn’t want to go out to a loud pub and get a drink with Serena, Bernie wants to go home with her and curl up in her friend’s arms and be sad about today and every other day she’s lost people. She wants Serena to brush the bangs back from her forehead and kiss her in a way that makes it all go away. She wants to feel the texture of Serena’s clothes as she pulls them off of her.

But she doesn’t know how to ask for that, even if there was some world in which she would.

Instead, she drops her cigarette into the ashtray and makes a show of shaking off her mood. “Absolutely,” she says. “Drinks coming up. Just let me get changed.”

Serena smiles and pats her arm again and lets her lead the way back into the hospital.


End file.
